A German-Russian partnership is a key element in any serious pan-European integration process. It is my ardent wish that Russia and Germany may manag… - Mikhail Gorbachev

The day after I announced that I was stepping down, I was scheduled to come to the Kremlin for an interview with a Japanese reporter. I got a call beforehand from one of my assistants, who said that Yeltsin was in my office with his entourage, finishing off a bottle of whiskey. These people were almost like savages, celebrating their big victory over a bottle in my office. I told myself: That office has been desecrated. I will never set foot in that room again.

The social and political order in some particular countries did change in the past, and it can change in the future as well. But this is exclusively a matter for the peoples themselves and of their choice. Any interference in internal affairs, any attempts to limit the sovereignty of states — whether of friends and allies or anybody else — are inadmissible.

We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them. The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently. Every US president has to have a war.